The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Interest in health and fitness has increased significantly in the past few years. People are generally more conscious and interested in finding ways to exercise, and especially in activities that are easy to integrate into everyday schedules and routines. Improved cardiovascular health and weight reduction for some individuals can mean more energy available throughout the day, improved attentiveness, improved mood and improved general well-being.
While visits to health clubs before or after work are possible by some individuals, with many other individuals, family commitments, or even work or travel commitments, make it difficult to follow a routine at a health club. Spending time at a health club also takes away from the limited family or free time that individuals have outside of work. An inability to maintain a commitment to a health club often leads to complete abandonment of health objectives.
Many individuals are now involved with desk or office type jobs and occupations where it is common to spend long periods of time seated at a computer terminal or making or fielding number phone calls. Many individuals working in an office environment spend a good part of every work day sitting for long stretches of time in front of a computer or talking on the phone.
Even in a home environment, it is now common to have a home office set up where one can work at home part time, or even full time, performing computer related work such as checking and sending emails, managing calendar appointments, creating reports or spreadsheets, etc., all typically while seated at a conventional desk.
In view of the significant time constraints many individuals face with work and/or family commitments, and the significant time that many individuals find themselves spending at a desk doing computer or telephone related work, it would be a significant time savings if one could integrate low level aerobic activity, for example, walking on a treadmill, with a system that allows full connectivity to the individuals work enterprise while the individual accesses computer related accounts from his/her enterprise (e.g., email, calendar, contacts) or enterprise supplied applications (word processing or spreadsheet applications) while simultaneously getting the health benefits of low level low level aerobic activity projects.
It would further be a significant benefit if the activity of the treadmill could be integrated with some external subsystem, for example a cloud-based subsystem, that could track and report the activity of each user of the treadmill to the user's enterprise (i.e., place of employment) and facilitate gamification of treadmill activities to motivate individuals to make use of the treadmills whenever the opportunity presents itself. Such a system that implements gamification would not only allow an individual to burn calories and obtain the aerobic benefits of walking for short time intervals (e.g., 15 minutes, 30 minutes or longer per interval), all while keeping a record of the individuals participation on the treadmill, but could make such use even more enjoyable by creating and monitoring user activities on the treadmill in a manner that fosters competition among individuals for enterprise supplied prizes and awards. The health benefits to individuals of the enterprise in improved health and well-being may well help to improve productivity of the system.